Riskier Business

Crossing the Line

By: Tessa Bailey

Narrated by: Vivian Hart

After a life of pool hustling and living on the wrong side of the law, Ruby Elliott is living on the straight and narrow with sexy-as-all-hell NYPD detective, Troy Bennett. Now the only trouble Ruby has with the law is the naughty kind, pinned against the wall by Troy's strict and spectacularly hard body. Obeying his every command. Both of them losing themselves in a lust that borders on obsession . . .

But then her father returns with an offer she can't refuse: one last hustle in exchange for information. Information she'd die to have. As the pieces and the players of the game reveal themselves, Troy feels the fine edges of his control slipping—control he can't channel without hurting Ruby. The stakes are high, and the risk higher. Because losing this final game could cost more than Ruby's heart . . . it might cost her life.

Contains mature themes.

©2015 Tessa Bailey (P)2022 Tantor

Really Stimulating Plot

I liked the plot and the story it was short yet enthralling. For some book readers, the plot may be easy to decipher, but for me I was kept guessing. Good read for a break between series. :)

Hard to get through

Story could have been good, however the narration was terrible. Difficult to know what was going on as the narrator's voice never changed throughout the entire reading. Conversations were a bit cheesy and unrealistic.

Bad audio performance

I love Tessa biley books but the audio performance was thurible I could not enjoy it

Horrible choice for narrator

The narrator has the wrong voice for this book, horrible with male voices, no sex appeal in voice, sounds like an old lady with no passion. Bad actor.

Naughty novella begging for male narrator

When the plot is at a minimum and the focus is on a dom-y, dirty mouthed cop disciplining his pool hustler girlfriend, the narration begs for a growly, bourbon voiced narrator like Shane East or Sebastian York. Sadly, we instead get a soft, whispery, feminine narration that didn’t sell the sex or the cheese.
The full length books still pass on a male narrator but use Jill Redfield (aka Sophie Eastlake) who at least gives a sexier alpha male voice.

The prequel introduces some of the other series MCs, but, with the exception of Bowen (MC for book 1), there’s no details or descriptions, just rapid fire naming. I couldn’t tell you about them if my life depended on it. That’s okay though; you don’t need to listen to the two prequels in order to listen to any of the books. Likewise, this prequel .25 is complete and doesn’t end on a cliffhanger (although it is a little HFN and
we see the same couple again in the next prequel .50).